The changing culture of UK source-handling: the moral ambiguities and tensions experienced by specialised police handlers in a UK Dedicated Source Unit (DSU)

• In Event: POL Panel 8. Police officer experiences and mental health

Abstract

Covert investigation is a key feature of late modern policing that commonly involves the deployment of civilian informants, amongst other methods. This paper draws upon interviews conducted with officers from various law enforcement agencies who have responsibility for the day-to-day management of informants to examine the impact of specialised source handling. In particular, the discussion explores some hitherto unnoticed aspects of the human relationship between officer agents of the state (handlers) and citizen informants (CHIS). The latter must now be recruited and managed very differently, and there is evidence to suggest that the use of coercion noted in previous literature has been challenged and reshaped by important changes in the working environment. In the absence of overt oppression, handlers must now rely on alternative and softer means to convince informants to risk their own safety and work with the police. In so doing, the paper demonstrates that contemporary dedicated source handling takes place in a unique vacuum, which has far-reaching cultural implications for the handler as they come to work inside and navigate a police organisation from which they feel largely detached. In the absence of direct experience or exposure to the covert tactic, the majority of conventional police officers – including those who supervise handlers – have little concept of how informants are managed in this new, non-coercive setting. The overall aim of this paper, therefore, is to examine the lived experiences of the informant handlers who operate within this much-altered milieu. It considers the investment, emotional labour and soft power expended by handlers who must rely on the human connection to achieve the safety and compliance necessary for this secretive and challenging work.

Author

• Christopher Riches, Bangor University